Caulfield Cross Country: DAY FOUR - JUNE 11TH 2009

Thursday, June 11, 2009

DAY FOUR - JUNE 11TH 2009 - HEADING TO MEMPHIS!

We are on Route 40 headed towards Memphis, our third stop on our cross country adventure. Bad storms in Nashville this morning but luckily it cleared up by the time we checked out. We polled the kids and asked them what they thought about Nashville on a scale of 1 to 10 and here are the reponses: Fiona, Neil and Tierney gave it a 10. Owen gave it a 9 but he really could not explain his reasoning for not giving it a solid 10. So they are all enjoying the experiences of this road trip. We are all getting used to loading and unloading the van pretty efficiently. As you can imagine, Captain Pat has very specific instructions on how we pack the bags.

Nashville became a hotbed of actitivity with the CMA Music Festival officially beginning today. The Bellman was perplexed as to why we would be checking out on this particular day, when the all the excitement was just beginning. But we have places to see! And frankly, how could we ever top our first 24 hours in Nashville! We hopefuly will get the photo of us with Darryl Worley so we can really shamelessly brag about this experience some more. A person from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation took the photo with her camera (what ever was I thinking to not hand her my pocket camera!!! Neil had left by then with his camera). We are waiting for her to email it to us. And of course she is on vacation the rest of this week!

We are planning on commemorating our trip by decorating the van with state flag stickers from each state that we pass through. So if you thought the last van looked eclectic with all the school stickers on it, wait to you see this! And Fiona and I are sewing (correction, I am sewing) patches from all the places we visit on our back packs. Thank you Amy for the great idea! They are going to be quite the conversation pieces! Tierney, Owen and Neil were not interested in this activity but have started collecting pins or post cards of each place (less labor intensive).

As I type this we are approaching the 1,000th mile! Better sew those patches on before we arrive in Memphis.....before we collect more patches. That is all for now.....................

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The Van

Some people have asked what kind of vehicle we are traveling to all these great places. This is the conversion van that I drive kids to school in during the school year. We have used every inch of space (remember 23 bags and growing). We borrowed the back hauling "shelf" to keep a large cooler and if needed, extra bags. So far we have kept our bags inside of the van. I have asked Patrick to post a blog on the "system" of packing and unpacking the van at each stop. He and the boys have it down to a military drill by now.

The Big Easy

This cab tried following the street cleaners down Bourbon. Not sure if you can see the debris he is driving over (glass, bottles, beads, plastic cups etc). The street sweeper is behind him. The street cleaning machine is ahead of him, and they are spraying the street with power hose first and then the sweeper comes behind to sweep up debris. This was taken around 6 AM, which was about a half hour after I heard the sirens or sound that clears the partiers off the streets.This cab finally gave up and backed up and headed up Bienville Street. The street cleaners were in an argument with some drunks who still felt they should have reign over Bourbon Street.